I’m figuring it was plasticized in some way. Maybe the olive oil was made into a powder with maltodextrin and some other secret ingredient, reagent, or hardener and then extruded into a string. Simple matter to wrap the filament around a cylinder to get the spring.
That other secret ingredient might be methylcellulose. Then again, I’m just guessing.
The best I have ever had was the Inn at Little Washington outside of Washington DC. It is maintained its status among the very best restaurants for over a decade, which is a lifetime in that business.
What struck me was the intensity of flavor. As an example, I was floored by an amuse bouche described as the “world’s smallest baked potato”. It was simply a tiny baked potato filled with fresh cream and a variety of bacon. Two small bites and it was gone. I don’t know what they did to that cream or what pig that bacon came from, but the chef managed to distill the essence of bacon and cream into a tiny space.
You also find a combination of tastes that are daring and unusual, but in the best restaurants they never fall flat. Seared tuna with cucumber sorbet and daikon radish slices would be something I would be scared of at most places. When done right that type of food can inspire you to experiment with flavors that you wouldn’t otherwise consider pairing.
Food is a lot like art, they are both very subjective and opinions on each are going to vary from one person to another. What is a brilliant masterpiece to one person’s eyes and palette is pretentious and bland to another. Some of Jackson Pollack’s “works of art” still just look like random splashes of paint to me. Some are interesting to look at, and I can see what he was going for in others but to me isn’t on the same level as a Picasso or Van Gogh. El Bulli is going to be the same for some people, they admire and appreciate something more traditional and familiar. And they aren’t wrong for feeling that way, nor is a proponant of Adria’s wrong in their admiration for him and his style.
If Les Halles is a diner, then I’m Julia Child.
Bourdain was probably more conceptual than Adrian is his halcyon days as a young punk resteraunteur with the bad boys. Who’s more pretentious than Johnny Rotten?
Shit, I’m thinking of a restaurant that was nearby, not the market. What was the name of the place… :smack: They served all kinds of people, especially the laborers that worked at Les Halles proper. And I just saw or read something on the topic, how embarrassing.
Simon Johnson the Sydney “Purveyor of Fine Foods” sells Ferran Adriá kits with the tools and chemicals to achieve his effects. Interesting stuff but pricey.
Yea, Les Halles is the marketplace, and Bourdain’s Les Halles is modeled after a french restaurant nearby, but what I’m trying to get at is that Bourdain’s Les Halles Brasserie is a far call from a diner, even by French standards. The food might be relatively basic French Food, but it is still French Food by American standards and far from unpretentious.
You may get a kick out of these pictures as well. I especially enjoy the penultimate picture of the bacon in that contraption.